


So Fine

by Augustus



Category: Guns N' Roses
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-05-28
Updated: 2002-05-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 07:38:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3241604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Augustus/pseuds/Augustus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rock ‘n’ roll fairytale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Fine

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Axl grew up as Bill Bailey.

Once upon a time, there was Izzy. 

Izzy and I grew up together. In Lafayette, there wasn't a lot to do, especially if you were interested in the sort of music he and I were interested in. Back then, I was set upon self-destruction, achieving notoriety through my actions rather than my words. Izzy was like an ally in my struggles against the small-town mindset. When he left for LA, it only seemed natural that I should follow.

Despite our common background, Izzy and I were always very different people. He had a calm way of looking at the world that simply didn't work for a person like me. When interviewers would try to goad him into a vitriolic rant about his Indiana upbringing, he'd simply push the question aside with a few cool words. Me? I've never been one to hold back on the truth. 

For the first few years in LA, Izzy was my constant. We didn't have a lot of money or a decent place to sleep, but we had each other. And then we met Slash, Steve and Duff... and suddenly we had a band. A band that was worth something. The first time we performed, there were two people in the audience. A few years later, we had the best selling debut album of all time. It was no fluke, no surprise. We made it to the top because we were good. We were good and we were right together. 

Throughout it all, there was Izzy. 

Even when things were particularly bad, Izzy was the guy I could always trust. We had history. I'd leave the Troubadour ready to kill something after a particularly bad gig and he'd be there to calm me down with soft words about the future and about my place in his life. It's funny how things sneak up on you. For so long, Izzy was my constant and only supporter. I never thought things would go beyond that, though. I just didn't see things that way.

I've had a lot of trouble with unwanted attention in my life. Back when I used to wear makeup and put my hair up, guys would take that as an indication that I wasn't interested in women. It wasn't a statement of sexuality, but try to tell that to a two hundred pound guy with a hard-on. Various things in my life have made me less than understanding when it came to matters of homosexuality. But with Izzy, things were different.

The first time he kissed me was in the aftermath of a particularly bad interview. We had been trying to promote the upcoming album, but the reporter seemed more interested in presenting us as the spawn of Satan. Finally, I had simply left the room, feeling that it was better to do that than to find myself up in front of a magistrate on another assault charge. By the time Izzy found me, my house was already something of a mess. The curtains were torn and the furniture upended, but all he said was 'Bill', and all he did was right a sofa so he could drag me down onto it.

It was okay, because it was Izzy.

His lips were firmer than the women's mouths I was used to, the lipstick heavy pouts that came as the reward for a particularly good set or the promise of a fame we didn't yet have. I was too shocked to pull away, too comforted to begrudge his need. And he was my friend, after all. I mattered to him. Sure, I mattered to the other guys too, but that was more as an irreplaceable member of the band than as a person. Or perhaps that was just the way I saw it.

He kissed me a lot, after I didn't kill him the first time. After a while, I started to kiss him back. In his arms I found safety and constancy, if not actual passion. It was easy to cloud my actions with altruistic justifications. And I did love him, in my own fucked-up way. Not as a man, or a lover, but as a friend. I thought that would be enough. I guess I was naïve.

Steve succumbed to drugs at the beginning of the nineties. It just reached the stage where they meant more to him than the music did. It hit us pretty hard. For six months, we didn't have a drummer. I guess we all just wanted to think he'd sort himself out. In the end, though, temporary replacements just didn't work any more. Matt joined the group and things changed for good.

And Izzy started changing too.

He became possessive, jealous. When I looked at Slash for more that a quick glance, Izzy would become stiff and tense at my side. He began to tire of fame and the trappings that went with it. The women who flocked backstage after the shows ceased to be a laugh and a game, drawing frowns and cold silences instead of the previous chuckles and discarding of clothes.

Even the music didn’t thrill him any more. We began to argue - but it was different now, not the old banter: half irritation, half history. Each word became jagged, pointed, and I didn’t know him. And he couldn’t understand that if he was not my friend, then he was nothing. When I refused his love, he refused my friendship and our fame. When he left the band, it was forever. 

Without Izzy, I felt alone. The others talked and played and existed around me, but it wasn’t the same. They didn’t understand me, not like he did. Slash and I were close, but he hadn’t been around when it all began, didn’t know what it was like to be suffocated by small town sensibilities when all you could think about was getting out and getting free and getting…

…getting over the realisation that nobody lives happily ever after.

But then along came Gilby. All smiles and hair and optimism and so unlike Izzy that sometimes if felt as though we’d not so much changed rhythm guitarists as realities. When I slipped into sulks or temper tantrums, he wouldn’t offer statements of my importance to him or tainted reminiscence. He’d just grin and shake his head and accompany my mood with soft chords and the twang of fingers sliding on steel.

Gilby was not so much a friend as a workmate. There was no history to be cosseted or shattered, nothing of the past to linger and interfere with the present. In ignoring my shields entirely, he somehow managed to climb beneath them, eyes soft and warm and unshadowed. His kiss was tentative, knowing, split by a smile. And I couldn’t mask it with loyalty or misguided friendship. But, despite everything I thought I knew about myself, that didn’t matter any more. It made me feel good.

Gilby made me feel good.

And when we’re together it’s like Izzy never happened. The past is just that, and suddenly I can see a future. The music pounds through my blood and his smile makes everything okay. This is nothing I’ve ever known before. And, despite myself, I like it.

As for living happily ever after, well, who knows? Perhaps fairy tales can come true after all.

**28th May 2002**


End file.
